US company agrees to restart MH370 search in ‘no find, no fee’ deal

By Euan McKirdy

CNN

A US marine exploration company has agreed to restart the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370, according to Australian’s transport minister.

Ocean Infinity, which has entered into an agreement with the Malaysian government, will only benefit financially from the deal if it successfully locates the missing plane.

MH370 disappeared without a trace en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board.

In the years since, some debris has been found but the location of the fuselage remains a mystery.

“Malaysia’s decision to proceed with the search shows the commitment to find MH370,” a statement from Darren Chester, Australia’s Minister for Infrastructure and Transport said.

Australia led the initial search, after analysis showed the plane was most likely to have sunk to the bottom off the ocean off the coast of West Australia.

Most of the passengers and crew were from China and Malaysia, but individuals and families from 14 different countries were also on board the missing flight.

Ocean Infinity only stands to benefit financially from the search if it finds the plane, entering into a “‘no find, no fee’ arrangement,” Chester’s statement says.

In August, when the Texas-based company first tabled the offer, it declined to reveal the exact terms of the proposal, but said in an email at the time to CNN that it was willing to “take on the economic risk of a renewed search.”

It’s not clear how much the new search could cost. CNN has contacted Ocean Infinity and is awaiting comment.

The original search, which covered 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles), cost roughly $150 million.

Malaysia, Australia and China announced they were suspending the operation in January, nearly three years after the plane disappeared.

Chester said while he hoped the new search was successful, he was wary of raising the hope of families of the people on board.

“I hope that this new search will bring answers, both for the next of kin and for the rest of the world,” he said.

Beijing resident Steve Wang, whose mother was on board the missing plane, told CNN Friday that using a third party to continue the search was “definitely good news.”

“I hope the investigative team can release all the information and data they’ve gathered throughout the whole process and make sure to pass all the information to that firm, which will be taking over the search,” he said.

When the offer was first mooted in August, a support group comprised of families of the missing victims welcomed it, describing it as “win-win.”

The flight’s disappearance gripped the world in the months that followed its disappearance. Some debris definitively linked to the plane has been found, but for the most part its whereabouts remains a mystery.

What had seemed a routine overnight flight took a mysterious turn at some point following the pilots’ radio “handshake” with Malaysian air traffic controllers as the plane entered Vietnamese airspace.

Competing theories have surfaced as to what led to the plane’s mysterious disappearance.

In its final report released earlier this month, investigators for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it was “almost inconceivable” that authorities were no closer to knowing its ultimate fate.

The governments didn’t rule out a future resumption of the search if “credible new information” came to light.

However, in his statement Friday, Chester said no new information had since emerged.

Ocean Infinity’s search will focus on the seafloor that has been identified by experts as the “next most likely location to find MH370,” the statement said.

In December last year, an Australian government report confirmed that teams searching for the missing aircraft had been very likely been looking in the wrong place.

“Given the high confidence in the search undertaken to date, the experts agreed that the previously defined (search) area is unlikely to contain the missing aircraft,” a spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said in a statement.

That report recommended that, based on new analysis, a new area approximately 25,000 square kilometers to the northeast of the then-search area should be searched.

Australia said, at Malaysia’s request, it would give Ocean Infinity technical assistance and data collected from the previous search.

While the whereabouts of the main fuselage remains a mystery, stray debris belonging to the aircraft has been found over the past couple of years off the coast of west Africa.

The plane parts are thought to have been transported the thousands of miles from the suspected crash arc to Africa by strong Indian Ocean currents.